


unknown hex (love)

by brucewaynery



Series: iron man bingo fills [10]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Humor, Iron Man Bingo 2019, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, enemies to fuckbuddies to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 12:44:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20192503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brucewaynery/pseuds/brucewaynery
Summary: Steve and Tony hate each other, have done for the past six and a half years, ever since First Year. They hate each other, despise, really, but they can't stop talking to each other. Now, nearing the end of Seventh Year, they realise it might not be hate.OR enemies to fuckbuddies to lovers hogwarts au, featuring two boys in denial (tm)(for 'wizards and witches' on iron man bingo)





	unknown hex (love)

**Author's Note:**

> tried a new style, enjoy!

(Hogwarts is exactly as it is in the UK except this one’s upstate New York.)

“Tony, you say his name one more time, I will, by no use of magic, make sure you can’t speak for the rest of the year,” Natasha growls out. It’s not that she even hates the guy that Tony’s complaining about, hell, she’s pretty good friends with Steve, but _Merlin_, both of them need to get their heads out of their asses and put something else in.

Natasha’s _this_ close to taking their wands, shoving both of them into a closet, and only unlocking the door when they can prove that they can be civil for longer than five seconds. The only reason she hasn’t already is that both of them are too good at wandless magic (Tony kept accidentally lighting things on fire in Sixth Year (and ‘accidentally’ lighting Steve on fire)). 

And there’s a general ban on locking people in closets (Steve ‘accidentally’ locked Tony in a closet in Sixth Year in a potions class, so Tony locked him in a different closet and sunk it to the bottom of the lake, so Steve locked him in a closet and kept it levitating above Gryffindor tower until Tony woke up, and then, along with a general ban on locking people in closets, Steve and Tony aren’t allowed to be in any more closets - every single one in the castle and the neighbouring town are hexed to throw them out. Surprisingly, their… arguments have been far less physical after that, now just yelling and snarking at each other in the corridors. Natasha’s not quite sure what to make of that particular development.

Tony glares at her, flopping back on the grass, cushioned by the air with a flick of his hand, so he’s floating a little, “But S-- _he’s_ so goddamn stupid--”

“Then stop talking to him!” Rhodey says, exasperatedly. They’ve been through this too many times to count, ever since the start of First Year, Steve and Tony hated each other and never made up, leading them to now, just over a month before they take their NEWTs and leave, and those two still can’t have a normal conversation.

“No,” Tony says, well used to the exchange, Rhodey will tell him to stop talking to him, and as much as Steve is an arrogant, stubborn, bastard, for some reason, he can’t stop talking to him. During one memorable argument last year that had resulted in the dining hall being blown up (only a little), the headmaster had forced them to go to medical to see if they had any hexes put on them. 

They didn’t. 

“Then don’t complain.”

_“No.”_

-

“What do you mean ‘no’ he’s the crux of all your problems, stop talking to him, pretend he doesn’t exist,” Sam says to Steve, tired of going through the same conversation and debate and argument again and again.

“Last time I tried that he blew up the hall,” Steve says.

“_You_ also had a hand in blowing up, don’t think I’ve forgotten,” Bucky interrupts. He’s never gonna let Steve live that down, especially because after, they’d been forced to be checked for hexes. Even though the headmaster wasn’t aware of any hexes that could make them do… whatever they do.

“It was mostly him,” Steve insists, it was, he’s the one who started that particular argument.

“One day doesn’t count as ignoring,” Bucky adds. He’s pretty sure that he’s had this conversation in his sleep, the amount of times they’ve been over it.

Before Steve can say anything, Sam interrupts and says, “The longest you’ve gone without talking to him was that week you were in the infirmary, and even then you sent him howlers, and _he sent them back_!”

“God forbid if both of you end up working for the Magical Congress together,” Bucky mutters.   
He can’t imagine what it would be like for them in the working world, devoid of all the rules here. He fears the day they run MACUSA together. He’s not too sure that moving to different galaxies will stop them from talking to each other. Morons. He’s suggested to Steve to just fuck it out, but he’d just rolled his eyes, ignoring his incredibly helpful advice (it had worked for him and Sam, but they weren’t anywhere near as bad as Steve and Tony).

Going back to his charms homework, Steve replies amicably, _“Fuck you.”_

-

“Real original Stark,” Steve taunts back, repressing what he’d rather say, the corridor is full of people, everyone watching. Their drama a pretty big source of entertainment, for everyone who isn’t the headmaster and the ghosts he sometimes ropes in to referee them.

“What, you want me to fuck your mother instead?” Tony taunts back, without thinking.

The next thing he knows, he’s standing in his underwear in the middle of the quidditch field. 

In front of First Years.

Great.

When he gets back to Ravenclaw Tower, he finds out that Steve lost the Gryffindors a hundred points, and he, the Ravenclaws.

“He’s the one who used magic on me!” (Steve and Tony have a ban on using magic on each other (Third Year)) Tony complains, even though, admittedly, he went far too far, especially just for passing the hallways.

“Tony,” Bruce says.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“Just st--”

_ “If you say stop talking to him--” _

-

“Steve, that’s, barring actual death, and even then I’m not sure, is the only way to stop this, it was getting stupid five years ago,” Bucky says. The worst thing is that he’s not even exaggerating. Those two have lost their respective houses so many points over the years that whenever points get deducted now because of them, they get put into different section (Idiotic Losses) and whichever Prefect wins the chess tournament at the end of the year between them, wins the points for their houses (Fourth Year).

“I can’t, Buck, if I do, then--”

“He wins, I know, I know,” Bucky sighs, “you okay?”

“Yeah, it was probably just a slip of the tongue or something,” Steve says, it’s common with them. More than it should be, really. He’s said his fair share of things that classify as ‘too far’, and got his due hexes from Rhodey - both Rhodey and Bucky stopped revenge-hexing about halfway into Third Year, claiming it lost them too many points too often. The headmaster also put a ban on revenge-hexing that had anything to do with Steven Grant Rogers and Anthony Edward Stark.

“Doesn’t make it acceptable.”

_ “I know, I know--” _

-

“-- he’s a dick, stop talking to him, blah blah blah--”

“Have you maybe considered being nice to him?” Rhodey asks, pushing a pawn across the board. He’s trying to better his chess skills so maybe he’ll have a chance in the tournament at the end of the year - Hufflepuff have won every single time, and he’s determined not to let them in his last year.

Tony looks at him like he’s gone crazy, “Honeybear, have you already forgotten what he did--”

“Because of what _you_ said!”

Tony concedes that, they took familial insults off the table halfway through First Year when Steve made a crack at his father and Tony, his. But he’s not going to be nice to him, he doesn’t deserve it. 

Maybe if he repeats it enough times he’ll believe it.

Rhodey sighs, so done, he’s practically burnt, _ “Do you know why little boys pull little girls’ pigtails?”_

-

“Because boys are praised and rewarded for showing violence in place of affection?” Steve says, in place of admitting that Bucky might be right.

“Smartass,” Bucky grumbles, flicking ink at him.

_ “I don’t like him, he doesn’t like me, never will, never has.” _

-

“You physically can’t stop talking to him, what does that say about you?”

“Unknown hex,” Tony insists stubbornly. 

“Well what does that say about him?”

“It makes him a _moron_!”

-

“How am I the moron?”

“You’re clearly making them suspicious,” Tony says, glaring at Steve.

“Right, because this is so shameful?” Steve says, sarcastically, but there’s still hurt laced in the anger.

“Secret fucks? That’s pretty damn shameful,” Tony spits back. They’re at the top of Ravenclaw tower, alone, in the dark, save for the crescent moon and the stars. For better or for worse, they’re not yet banned from being in the same vicinity at the same time alone.

“Are you cheating on someone?” Tony wouldn’t, Steve knows that Tony wouldn’t and he isn’t.

“You know me better than that,” Tony scowls, indignant.

“Then why is it so shameful?”

“Because-- because neither of us can stand each other and that’s how it’s been for the past seven years and it’s staying that way!” Tony says, voice getting louder and louder. He doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince anymore.

“Why do you hate me?” Steve provokes. He’s tired of all of this, he’s tired of the constant fighting that, ultimately, doesn’t mean anything at all, he’s tired of keeping secrets from his friends and he’s tired of pretending to hate Tony. In all honesty, he hasn’t hated him for a while now.

“Because,” Tony says, stubbornly, “it’s how it’s been for the past forever.” Maybe if Tony tells himself that he despises every cell in his body, he’ll believe it one day. He doesn’t want to hate him, but he doesn’t want to love him. He doesn’t. He doesn’t love the way he laughs, he doesn’t love his hair, or his eyes, or his body, or the way he thinks or his determination, or his pigheadedness, or the way he knows Tony inside out, or the way he’ll go out of his way to help someone, or his stupid smile and the way it brightens up his face. He doesn’t love him.

Steve gives him a disbelieving look, all the anger and hurt dissipating, “We’re not eleven anymore.”

“Yeah, we’re not,” Tony agrees, instead of saying the insult on the tip of his tongue, Tony doesn’t have it in him to force it out, no-ones watching anyway. 

“I don’t hate you, you know,” Steve says, quietly. He might even like him. Love him. His eleven-year-old self would Wingardium Leviosa his ass out the stratosphere.

Tony does know. Steve told him, last year, after the closet debacle. Tony called him a liar, Steve ignored him, they broke the dining hall a little in trying to convince each other. (The hall was empty, it had been just gone 3 in the morning.) And he doesn’t think that he hates him, not anymore.

“I know.”

Steve sighs and looks up at the stars, eyes tracking over constellations. Tony gets an irrational urge to take him to Australia to show him even more stars.

“Tell me you hate me,” Steve challenges, after a beat of silence, turning to him, fire in his eyes.

“What?”

Steve comes closer, close enough that Tony could count his eyelashes (give or take 550 - he counted, one night, after Steve had fallen asleep) if it weren’t so dark, he’s close enough that he can smell him. He resists the urge to hug him, to bury himself in his arms, to apologise, to spill all his secrets.

“Tell me you hate me.”

It’s not even on the tip of his tongue. Tony’s reasonably sure that all the willpower he currently possesses couldn’t make him say ‘I hate you’ to Steve. It used to be so damn easy, scathing and venomous, and then he started sleeping with him, they lost their virginity to each other, rash, stupid and full of hate, and then they said it simply in passing, more lighthearted, and they meant it, every time. But now, he can’t. Even an Imperio Curse couldn’t make him say it.

Steve takes his non-answer as an answer and smiles, like Tony finally, finally got something. He really is beautiful when he smiles. Tony can’t be bothered to keep back those thoughts anymore. Steve is beautiful, gorgeous, even when he’s angry he’s ridiculously hot - which is how the hate (well, not anymore) fucking started in the first place.

“I love you,” Steve can’t stop himself from saying it, but that just makes it ore true. And maybe it’ll turn out to be a mistake, and he’ll lose one of the best people he knows, but Gryffindors are meant to be impulsive, right?

Tony looks, surprised, mostly, but also relieved. Not a mistake. So very much not a mistake, especially when Tony closes the gap between them and kisses him as he holds him tight.

“I love you too,” Tony whispers, breath ghosting over his lips.

“You do?” Steve teases, and just like that, the air is cleared, so much goes unsaid, but Tony has to confirm, stupidly soft.

_“I do.”_

-

“And do you, Steven Grant Rogers, take Anthony Edward Stark to be your husband?”

“I do,” Steve says, grinning brightly. Nowadays, Tony has absolutely no qualms calling him gorgeous, or beautiful, or handsome (or a dickhead, but they’ve found better ways to resolves their conflicts). He’d say that they’re maturing in their old age (they’ve just left university), but he’s planning to shove cake in Steve’s face, and he’s willing to be that Steve is thinking the same exact thing.

“You may kiss the groom.”

_They kiss, soft and chaste, through their smiles._

-

“I can’t believe our courting was pranks,” Tony says, as they pull away. He’s feeling nostalgic tonight, but he’s allowed, it’s his wedding night.

“I can’t believe we didn’t get expelled,” Steve says, littering kisses down his neck.

Tony hums and guides Steve’s face so he can kiss him on the lips, slow and unhurriedly, “Wouldn’t regret it.”

Steve grins. “Neither would I.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! please leave a comment or [reblog this post](https://ineffablestarkrogers.tumblr.com/post/186913050446/unknown-hex-love) if you liked it <33


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